Hunting for Gas Giant Exoplanets Around A & F Class Stars

Searching for gas giant planets on Solar System scales - A NACO/APP L'-band survey of A- and F-type Main Sequence stars

Authors:

Meshkat et al

Abstract:

We report the results of a direct imaging survey of A- and F-type main sequence stars searching for giant planets. A/F stars are often the targets of surveys, as they are thought to have more massive giant planets relative to solar-type stars. However, most imaging is only sensitive to orbital separations greater than 30 AU, where it has been demonstrated that giant planets are rare. In this survey, we take advantage of the high-contrast capabilities of the Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph on NACO at the Very Large Telescope. Combined with optimized principal component analysis post-processing, we are sensitive to planetary-mass companions (2 to 12 MJup) at Solar System scales (≤30 AU). We obtained data on 13 stars in L'-band and detected one new companion as part of this survey: an M6.0±0.5 dwarf companion around HD 984. We re-detect low-mass companions around HD 12894 and HD 20385, both reported shortly after the completion of this survey. We use Monte Carlo simulations to determine new constraints on the low-mass (less than 80 MJup) companion frequency, as a function of mass and separation. Assuming solar-type planet mass and separation distributions, normalized to the planet frequency appropriate for A-stars, and the observed companion mass-ratio distribution for stellar companions extrapolated to planetary masses, we derive a truncation radius for the planetary mass companion surface density of less than 135 AU at 95% confidence.